Out at Sea - Ritchie Collins (Scottish Artist)
At the beach life is different. Time doesn’t move hour to hour but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides, and follow the sun.
Sandy Gingras, Writer.
We are all fascinated by the sea - that place where the ground under our feet shifts into less solid sand and then to another element entirely. We walk into the sea and suddenly we can float; we look at the sea and are moved and soothed, or swept away from our own concerns:
When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea,
and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its
noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and
confused.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Poet.
When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea,
and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its
noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and
confused.
Poets can't resist the sea and Scottish poets have plenty to go on, or on about.
Contemporary poets need to sell their poems so I have chosen some earlier poems for this blog post, If you want to read or listen to new poems the Scottish poetry archive is a wonderful resource:
Norman MacCaig (1910-96) was one of the best Scottish poets and one of my all-time favourite poets.
Midnight,
Lochinver
Norman
MacCaig (1910-96)
Wine-coloured, Homer said, wine-dark…
The seaweed on the stony beach,
Flushed darker with that wine, was kilts
And beasts and carpets… A startled heron
Tucked in its cloud two yellow stilts.
And eiderducks were five, no, two –
No, six. A lounging fishbox
raised
Its broad nose to the moon.
With groans
And shouts the steep burn drowned itself;
And sighs were soft among the stones.
All quiet, all dark: excepting where
A cone of light stood on the pier
And in the circle of its scope
A hot winch huffed and puffed and gnashed
Its iron fangs and swallowed rope.
The nursing tide moved gently in.
Familiar archipelagos
Heard her advancing, heard her speak
Things clear, though hard to understand
Whether in Gaelic or in Greek.
Summer Seas - Owen Henderson - Scottish artist
I have been marinading a sea poem for a while now and it finally reached the my consciousness this morning. Most of the human mind is unconscious and the sea is far more than just the surface we can see.
That Which Can Be Celebrated
Yes the levels are rising
Yes the coasts erode
(if a clod be washed away)
But it’s not all about us
The sea is bigger than that
It is splendidly indifferent
It offers trade and riches
Trafficking and despair
Here I live by the sea -
A challenging companion
I am in thrall
But fully aware of her
Moody ruthlessness
Like a spoilt beauty
She thinks she can
Get away with murder
The drowned are buried at sea
The victims of sea battles
Were slid over the side
Tipped off a board
Covered by a standard
Visible for a second
Before the big, deep, sleep.
For me it’s more personal
(It always is with humans)
I cast the last ashes here
Into a light breeze
Haloed by rainbows
It’s what he’s now become
Hold fast to that
Which can be celebrated
And move on.
Sally Givertz©2015
Kathleen Jamie (b. Scotland 1962) is next.
The poem below is already up on the internet and I love it so am breaking my own rule and showing it here in full. I think that we can all - both men and women - identify with this universal burden of believing we are somehow responsible for keeping the earth turning.
The Creel
Kathleen
Jamie
The world began with a woman,
shawl-happed, stooped under a creel,
whose slow step you recognize
from troubled dreams. You feel
obliged to help bear her burden
from hill or kelp-strewn shore,
but she passes by unseeing
thirled to her private chore.
It's not sea birds or peat she's carrying,
not fleece, nor the herring bright
but her fear that if ever she put it down
the world would go out like a light.
creel: wicker basket for carrying fish, peat, etc on
the back
thirled: enslaved
I have added a tiny poem by RLS being fairly cheerful about life for a change:
FAIR Isle at Sea - thy lovely name
Soft in my ear like music came.
That sea I loved, and once or twice
I touched at isles of Paradise.
As a footnote I'd say there are hundreds of other poems written by Scottish poets about the sea.
Hearing them speak their own poetry is the best way to get to know a new poet or enjoy a familiar one. Try the Poetry Archives. You can search by subject or by poet.
Have a good summer.
